NHL Betting Tips: Learn How to Bet on Hockey with these Strategies

Updated September 13, 2019

Betting on the NHL is a great way to add excitement and get more out of this hockey season. But figuring out the mechanics of how to be a successful bettor can often be complicated and confusing, so we’ve put together this simple guide covering all the NHL betting tips you need to be successful.

Thankfully, we’ve been betting on the NHL since Jagr’s hair had no grey in it, and we’ve created this handy and helpful resource for understanding all constituent parts of betting on the NHL. From straightforward bets like the NHL moneyline and puck line, all the way to the complex world of parlays, we’ve got you covered. If you want to learn how to bet on hockey this season, start here.

Single Game NHL Bets

The first bets you’ll encounter at your online sportsbook will be puck line bets, moneyline bets, and totals bets. All of these bets require you to wager on the outcome of a single game, and they are great places to start as you learn how to bet on the NHL.

Undoubtedly, this is where most of the money falls in online NHL betting, and once you understand the structure and operation of the single-game bets you’ll be equipped with a solid foundation to read and analyze the entire breadth of NHL lines.

Betting the Puck Line

To begin, let’s look at an example of how the puck line, total, and over/under will read on a typical NHL line at your sports betting site of choice.

Betting on the puck line is directly analogous to betting on the run line in baseball, or betting against the spread in football. You might also hear the puck line referred to as NHL spread betting or hockey point spread betting. The underlying mechanics are identical to betting on the spread in any other major North American professional league.

The puck line is unique because you are not betting on an outright winner or loser. Betting the favorite means that they must win by a specified number of goals, while betting on the underdog means they have to not lose by the specific number of goals.

The Puck Line in Practice

The betting line above might look a little complicated at first, so let’s walk through the pieces to see what’s what.

Puck line odds are listed as the ‘spread’ and the team with the negative number next to it, the Tampa Bay Lightning, is the favorite. If you were to bet on the Tampa Bay Lighting, they’d have to beat Ovechkin’s Capitals by at least two goals in order to cover the puck line, as indicated by the -1.5 and +1.5 next to each team name.

Another way of understanding the puck line would be to subtract 1.5 goals from Tampa’s final score and see if they still win the game. For example, if the Lightning won by a score of 4-2, they would still win the game. However, if they were to win 5-4, they would not have covered the puck line.

Conversely, if you bet on Washington, they would either have to win the game outright or lose by less than 1 goal in order for your bet to success. A “+” sign in front of the puck line will denote the underdog.

When betting the puck line, you are always taking the favorite to win by two or more goals. With any other outcome, the underdog covers and wins the bet.

The puck line will always include a half goal to avoid the possibility of a tie, or a “push,” and these half points are referred to as the “hook.” Either team scoring a half goal is impossible, which ensures that every bettor will either win or lose their wager. The NHL puck line is always set at +/-1.5.

Due to the low total score typically seen in hockey, especially in the post-lockout NHL (hovering around 5.5 for the last 8 or so years), it just doesn’t make sense for sportsbooks to create a larger spreads on the puckline. In practice, this means that bettors will always have the option to bet on the favorite to win by two goals (or more), or they can bet on the underdog to lose by no more than one goal or win outright.

Betting the NHL Moneyline

The most straightforward NHL bet is unquestionably the moneyline. When you place a bet on the moneyline, you’re betting on who is going to win the game, and that alone. There are no contingencies and victory is all that matters!

Similar to the puck line, the team that has a “+” sign on next to its moneyline number is the underdog, while the team with “-“ next to its moneyline number is regarded as the favorite. These figures mark your potential payout, as well as the probability that your sportsbook has assigned to each team’s prospective chances of winning the game.

In some cases, both teams will have “-“ signs next to them; in this case, the team with a number closer to 0 should be regarded as the favorite, i.e., – 105 would be the favorite over – 120.

If any of this is at all confusing, or you need a quick reminder on how to interpret the moneyline and how it interacts with your payout, read this moneyline article.

Let’s brush up quickly, using our example above. A positive moneyline indicates how much money you would win if you were to bet $100; a negative moneyline shows you how much money you would have to bet in order to win $100.

If you were to bet on a negative moneyline (i.e. Tampa Bay Lighting, at -175), you’re required to bet $175 in order to win $100. Conversely, if you bet $100 on the Washington Capitals, you’d walk away with $250 ($100 from your stake, and $150 of profit) if they win the game.

Totals Betting

Totals betting, also known as the over/under, is just as a simple to understand as the puck line and the NHL moneyline. For a totals bet, you are simply betting on whether the total score of a single NHL game, both teams combined, will be above or below a stipulated number. It is very rare that this number will be different from 5.5, but there are select exceptions to this rule.

Take the 5.5 seen in our sample line. If you were to bet the over, you’d be wagering that Tampa Bay and Washington would score 6 goals or more combined. Like the puck line, half goals eliminate any chance of a “push,” or a tie.

You’ll notice that the odds are the same whether you choose to take the over or the under (as indicated by the -110 next to them). This number indicates the payout. The -110 odds seen here are an industry standard for totals betting. Because the sportsbook has set the totals number to result in 50-50 chances, there’s no need to set different odds for each outcome. There are some exceptions to this rule, but expect to put down $110 to win $100 no matter which side you take betting totals.

Multiple Game Bets

Multiple game bets aren’t as popular in the NHL as they are in the sports like the NFL, MLB, and NBA, but they are still available on many different sports betting sites. Betting on the NHL becomes a little more complicated as soon as more than one game is involved; with a more significant number of games included, there are a higher number of variables. However, with a high number of variables, comes the chance of a much higher payout. That’s why multiple game NHL bets are a favorite of “sharps,” as they offer massive monetary rewards when successful.

NHL Parlays

A parlay is any type of bet that involves more than one specific event; this can be within a single game, or across several games. The possibilities of what an NHL parlay can look like are expansive, and sports betting sites will generally let you create custom parlays in whatever fashion you desire.

Let’s look at our sample line once more to see a hockey parlay in action. Thanks to parlays, its possible to bet on both the Washington Capitals winning the game, and the total being over 5.5. If you wanted to add another event to that stake, say, the Panthers beating the Leafs, that would be possible as well. The more constituent events you tack onto your parlay, the greater your payout.

The reward for guessing every event in your parlay correctly can be massive, but it’s important to know that there’s no pot of gold waiting for you if you predict three out of four events correctly, or even nine out of ten events. In order to be successful, every single event within your parlay must be a winner. Consequently, you can stand to win a huge amount of money on a relatively small wager, but that’s only because the probability of every event within your parlay going your way is quite small.

Parlays can involve any number of combinations of moneyline, puck line, or over/under bets from either one game or multiple games. However, very few sportsbooks will let you include a bet on both the moneyline and the puck line of the same game. Sportsbooks do this to protect their financial interests and mitigate potential losses.

Other NHL Bets

Much like any professional sports league, there are a ton of narratives outside of single games themselves that are captivating over the long run. In addition, there are aspects of single games that don’t involve the outcome of one specific game that can pique interest, like tracking which player will continue a hot streak, or bust a slump.

Whether these storylines are individual player point totals, awards races, or teams meeting or falling short of expectations, the NHL has a lot to offer in the way of intrigue. As betting on the NHL continues to grow in popularity, online sportsbooks are now offering bettors the possibility of placing cash down on how outcomes of some of these storylines are going to unfold.

NHL Prop Bets

NHL Prop Betting, technically known as propositional betting, allows you to bet on events within the game itself. Instead of wagering on the outcome of the game itself, you can wager on specific players and events within the game. The options for what specifically you can bet on vary from sportsbook to sportsbook, but bets like who scores the first goal of the game, if a player will score a goal, etc. are nearly unanimous in a sportsbooks NHL props lines.

If you’ve got a feeling McDavid is undoubtedly going to pot one (or two), a prop bet allows you to win some cash if your gut ends up being right!

NHL Futures Bets

After the NHL season comes to a conclusion and Stanley’s Cup is handed out, a multitude of Futures bets will appear on our sportsbook: the winner of the cup, conference, and regular season the following year, and the destinations of marquee free agents.

Many sportsbooks will allow you to bet on the over/under of a team’s prospective win totals for the following season; these will often come with a “hook” to avoid the possibility of a push. These are technically referred to as season props, and the odds sportsbooks offer will vary as information about specific teams comes to light.

For example, on July 1, the odds of Pittsburgh winning over 38 games would likely be low, set around -110. However, if during training camp, Crosby and Malkin both suffered season-ending injuries, the odds would shot up, likely somewhere around +400. For this reason, always exercise caution when placing your futures bets; not only because your money is tied up until the conclusion of the season, but because your bet is locked in at the odds you placed it at.

Betting on the NHL playoffs is an undoubtedly the most popular form of NHL futures betting, despite the fact that these futures don’t open until the NHL playoff’s seeding has officially been determined. Many sportsbooks will allow you to bet on the winner of not only individual series, but also of respective conferences. In addition, bets on who will win the Stanley Cup are offered again, often at significantly different odds than were available when the season commenced.

Additional futures bets include individual awards; these will also allow you to select a “FIELD” option, offering flexibility if you believe a player stands to win who is not listed as an option.

Further, if two marquee players are traded for each other (think something of the magnitude of Weber for Subban, Eberle for Strome, not Reaves for Sundqvist), sportsbooks may offer a futures bet of which player will end up with more points, assists, or goals at the conclusion of the season.

For the most part, sportsbooks will close futures bets once the season commences; again, this part of how sportsbooks protect themselves from significant financial losses.

NHL Futures: Playoff Bets

Betting on the NHL playoffs is an extremely popular form of NHL futures betting. Many sportsbooks will allow you to bet on the eventual winner of the playoff round as the series progresses, in addition to the winners of specific games.

In Game NHL Bets

While this feature is not ubiquitous quite yet, the best hockey betting sites are beginning to offer Live Betting on the NHL. As the name suggests, this means placing bets on games that have already started; just like betting on a game before it starts, you are given the option of betting on the moneyline, puck line, and totals. However, the puck line and odds may be modified in real-time, predicated on both the changing score of the game and the volume of bets.

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